Extra

A 60-year-old man died in a fall from a p0pular lookout point on Grizzly Peak Boulevard in the Berkeley hills on Sunday night, a University of California at Berkeley police lieutenant said today.
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The demonstration has dispersed. The Berkeley Police Department (BPD) has resumed normal patrol operations. We would like to thank the California Highway Patrol and the Oakland Police Department for their assistance.

This evening at approximately 8:49 p.m. the Berkeley Police Department was noticed by the Oakland Police Department that large groups involved in a violent demonstration were headed into the City of Berkeley.
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Protestors in an anti-police march that started in downtown Oakland this evening were stopped on Telegraph Avenue by a line of Berkeley police officers in riot gear and appear to be moving through Berkeley now.
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The Berkeley Police Department is announcing the arrest of a suspect following an apparent random knife attack on an AC Transit bus on Monday night, August 11, 2014, along San Pablo Avenue near Chaucer.

On August 11, at about 9:50 PM, witnesses flagged down a Berkeley Police Sergeant near San Pablo and Bancroft. They reported a knife attack just prior on an AC Transit bus, and pointed out the suspect. The Sergeant confronted the suspect at gunpoint, and, with the assistance of other officers, placed him in handcuffs and detained him.

Officers determined the suspect had been riding on the bus, when, for no apparent reason, he attacked another passenger. Witnesses reported the suspect walked down the aisle, pulled out a knife, said, “watch this,” and suddenly stabbed at a 21 year old woman seated nearby. Another passenger immediately took action, striking the suspect with his skateboard repeatedly and continuously, distracting the suspect from his attack.
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Page One

Despite running a surplus of $2.8 trillion, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has closed 80 offices, eliminated over 500 temporary mobile offices, and reduced its workforce since 2010 by 11,000. Moreover, it is planning on closing in the near future hundreds of more offices, and eventually, shutting down as many of the 1,245 field offices that it can get away with. Many additional thousands of useful jobs will be discarded. Seniors will be compelled to cope with their questions and concerns via the computer. If things go as planned, SSA's functions will be outsourced to private contractors. At the request of Congress SSA contracted with a think tank—the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) — to develop a long range vision for social security. NAPA is highly respected by Congress, which has given it a charter. Although the charter is just honorific, it gives an organization the aura of being officially sanctioned by the US Government. Significantly, current and past employees of major corporations have been on NAPA's Board of Directors.
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Tony Thurmond, candidate for Assembly, District 15, continued to build a powerful lead in a week that saw a wave of good news and new supporters to his campaign.

In the last seven days, Thurmond:

Reported fundraising totals 30 percent higher than his opponent and more cash-on-hand leading into the critical late summer / early fall phase of the campaign.

Won the endorsements of Pamela Price, Sam Kang and Clarence Hunt – all the major candidates in the primary election who did not advance to the runoff – and all the candidates of color and all the Democratic candidates.

Won the endorsement of the Contra Costa Times and Oakland Tribune – the major news organizations of the district.

Public Comment

For four days straight the San Francisco Bay Area community blocked the Israeli ZIM ship from unloading at the SSA. And today, we salute the rank and file workers of ILWU local 10 for standing with us against Israeli Apartheid by honoring our pickets and letting the ship go from the SSA terminal yesterday afternoon!
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These UC owned scenic spots are the ugliest turnouts in the West, and because the Eucalyptus log benches are on top of the cliffs and the set-up invites you to hang out on the cliff side of the benches, they should be considered an attractive nuisance and more deaths are predictable.
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Mercifully, the mood in Ferguson has changed drastically over the past 24 hours. On Wednesday night, the city resembled a war zone as police fired tear gas, stun grenades and smoke bombs. Common sense prevailed, as the newly appointed African-American Highway Patrol captain, Ron Johnson, was put in charge of security and ordered the ‘big gun’ military weapons to be put away. Johnson helped to defuse the tense situation by mingling with the crowd. Attorney General Eric Holder expressed concern regarding the deployment of military equipment and vehicles to quell a relatively minor domestic incident. What Holder forgot to mention was the federal government’s role in supplying local police forces with military-grade equipment – all paid with federal dollars from grant money generously doled out by the Department of Homeland Security.
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Mercifully, the mood in Ferguson has changed drastically over the past 24 hours. On Wednesday night, the city resembled a war zone as police fired tear gas, stun grenades and smoke bombs. Common sense prevailed, as the newly appointed African-American Highway Patrol captain, Ron Johnson, was put in charge of security and ordered the ‘big gun’ military weapons to be put away. Johnson helped to defuse the tense situation by mingling with the crowd. Attorney General Eric Holder expressed concern regarding the deployment of military equipment and vehicles to quell a relatively minor domestic incident. What Holder forgot to mention was the federal government’s role in supplying local police forces with military-grade equipment – all paid with federal dollars from grant money generously doled out by the Department of Homeland Security.
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La Vereda is a narrow, winding street, tucked between Cedar and the Virginia stairs that lead to the north side of the Berkeley campus. But these three blocks have been decaying for decades. Before EBMUD began tearing up the street this summer, the street was filled with patches, pot holes and rubble. I broke my foot in a pot-hole in front of my house. Down the street, Sallie Stockton fell over a pot hole, rolled over and over again, until her head hit the curb. Neglect has caused some homes to flood because the road is not properly paved. One resident took a picture of an enormous pothole and managed to get a patch from the city. In short, La Vereda looked more like an unpaved road in rural Mississippi than an urban street in the city of Berkeley.
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While the President has existing authority to protect American diplomatic personnel, I remain concerned about U.S. mission creep in Iraq and escalation into a larger conflict, which I oppose.

There is no military solution in Iraq. Any lasting solution must be political and respect the rights of all Iraqis.

I am pleased President Obama recognized this in his statement last night, when he said: ‘there’s no American military solution to the larger crisis in Iraq. The only lasting solution is reconciliation among Iraqi communities and stronger Iraqi security forces.’

I will continue to call for the President to seek congressional authorization before any combat operations. For too long, Congress has abdicated its Constitutional role in matters of war and peace. The President should come to Congress for authorization of any further military action in Iraq.
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CIA Director, John Brennan, apologized to the Senate Intelligence Committee after previously feigning outrage that such a ‘hollowed’ agency should be accused of illegally monitoring their computers. The explosive report reportedly documents extensive abuses and a massive cover-up by CIA officials. This is reminiscent of the bungling attempts of the Watergate plumbers. Only two weeks before John Brennan issued his weasel words of apology, the Obama Justice Dept. announced it would pass on investigating the allegations of CIA spying on Congress. Why? Doesn’t spying on Congress constitute high crimes?
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I hope my members of Congress will support and work for a lasting ceasefire that includes lifting the Israeli blockade of Gaza. The U.S. has particular responsibility to help end the killing since U.S. weapons are fueling this conflict. The International Committee of the Red Cross has called the blockade collective punishment against a civilian population. U.S. policymakers must call for lifting the blockade to ensure a durable ceasefire.
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According to Human Rights Watch, the only option remaining for Palestinians is to seek International Criminal Court jurisdiction over potential war crimes committed on and from Palestinian territory. The former, U.N. special rapporteur, on human rights in the Palestinian territories and emeritus professor of international law at the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands, Dugard, concurs. “Given the fact that Gaza is an occupied territory, it means that Israel’s present assault is simply a way of enforcing the continuation of the occupation, "and the response of the Palestinian militants should be seen as the response of an occupied people that wishes to resist the occupation." After all early settlers in the ‘land of the free, home of the brave’ were accused of ‘terrorism’ - resisting the oppression of the British crown. Dugard sees an exact parallel between apartheid South Africa and Israel. Tragically we have been complicit in Israel’s crimes by supplying it with massive uninterrupted supply of weapons.
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Editorial

Okay, today’s the last day for candidates for the Berkeley City Council to file, so it’s time to take a look at what choice voters might have for the November election. But first, let’s remind ourselves that the November election these days actually starts October 6, the first day you can get and mail your vote-by-mail ballot. So if you’re the kind of person who likes to cross items off your to-do list early, it’s time to figure out whether you might want to support any of the candidates. As you'll see if you read all the way to the bottom, I've made my choices.
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The Editor's Back Fence

There will be no new issue dated today because the editor and various columnists are taking time off to enjoy the last roses of summer. We have a few pieces in hand which will be posted as the opportunity arises, but there will be no new editorial as far as I know at the moment. Of course, keep checking berkeleydailyplanet.com just in case something momentous happens.
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For the past two or three weeks I've been sending the usual letters with article links to a list of "subscribers" via my Gmail account, since Comcast changed its interface so that my previous mail program no longer works. Now Google in its infinite wisdom has decided that our list of subscribers is suspiciously long, so they've unilaterally disabled ALL my outgoing email. I sincerely hope this can be fixed. Any ideas would be welcome. My incoming email still works, just can't reply.
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Herewith we launch a new BDP feature, the Department of Oh Sure, wherein we post irrational claims in the flood of campaign emails we receive. Names of the guilty will not necessarily be revealed: it would just encourage them.

"Creating more traffic: the Downtown Initiative would significantly increase how much parking is built in downtown Berkeley and even make zero-parking projects illegal. More parking will create more traffic and make walking, biking, and transit less useful and convenient."

The maltreatment experienced by persons with mental illness is not on the same scale of severity that African American people experienced several decades ago in which there was extreme violence perpetrated upon them. (We yet have a long way to go to alleviate the discrimination, wrongful conviction and violence directed at nonwhite individuals.)
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Francisco Mártinez Roca aka Paco Roca is a strip cartoonist, born in 1969 in Valencia, Spain. Experienced with graphic novels and advertising illustrations, he is most known for comic books like his graphic novel, Wrinkles. (In Spanish, arrugas. Unrelated to the 1978 novel of the same title by Charles Simmons.)
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Arts & Events

On Tuesday night, August 12, world-renowned artist Yo-Yo Ma played three of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Suites for Unaccompanied Cello at The Greek Theater. Until this performance, I had resisted falling under the sway of Yo-Yo Ma. One of the reasons for this was his 1998 recording “Inspired by Bach,” in which Yo-Yo Ma improvised on isolated movements from Bach’s Cello Suites, giving them silly titles such as “Falling down stairs.” Why play fantasy versions of Bach, I asked myself, when there is Bach?
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Mozart’s string quartets, at least those from the early 1770s to the early 1780s, owe much of their inspiration to the string quartets of Joseph Haydn, whose Opus 17 quartets of 1771 and six Opus 20 “Sun Quartets” of 1772 were models for Mozart’s early string quartets written between 1771 and 1773. However, for nearly ten years between 1773 and 1782 Mozart wrote no further string quartets. It was the publication in 1781 of Haydn’s six Opus 33 quartets that spurred Mozart to take up again the composition of string quartets. Musicologist Alfred Einstein writes, “the impression made by these quartets of Haydn’s was one of the profoundest Mozart experienced in his artistic life.”
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DRACULA’S INQUEST by Gary Graves at Central Works through August 17 is a harrowing 50 minutes with astonishing acting—that’s the second act. If you go, and I do urge you to go, do not leave at intermission no matter how much you want to.
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